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3 Men in Custody for Beating Ukrainian Journalist After Dashcam Records Car Chase

KIEV, UKRAINE — Activists and journalists say video footage recorded using a dashboard camera has assisted Ukrainian police in apprehending three men suspected of assaulting a prominent investigative journalist and activist on Dec. 25. Two other men have also been taken into custody for allegedly coordinating the attack.

Tetyana Chornovol, 34, was reportedly chased in her car, dragged into the street and then beaten by three men driving a dark Porsche Cayenne Turbo. She suffered a concussion, a broken nose and tissue damage on her face as a result.

Police on Wednesday said they had apprehended two suspects, Andriy Nasikovsky and Oleksandr Khramtsov, after the dashcam video (embedded below) of the car chase leading up to the incident was posted to YouTube. Nasikovsky was still in police custody on Friday, and Kiev’s Pechersk District Court arrested Khramtsov, who will be detained at least two months for investigation.

Khramstov is the registered owner of the Porsche, but he said he sold it six months ago to the third suspect, 29-year-old Serhiy Kotenko, who was detained and questioned by police on Thursday, the Kyiv Post reported, citing an Interior Ministry statement. However, Kotenko is not the registered owner because he has not paid for the vehicle in full, according to opposition news website Ukrainska Pravda.

A group of Ukrainian journalists — not police — identified Khramtsov as the registered owner of the vehicle, tracing the license plate of the high-end SUV, which was seen in the dashcam video.

The two other suspects, who are thought to have played a role in planning the attack, were also taken into custody on Friday. Among them is Kotenko's brother, Oleksandr Kotenko. Police have not yet released the name of the fifth suspect.

Police started investigating the case as hooliganism. However, after speaking with Chornovol, they later changed it to “infliction of bodily harm,” a charge that can fetch up to 10 years in prison if the suspects are convicted.

Chornovol has spent her career delving into the dubious actions of the country’s political elite, which has resulted in her being publicly smeared, beaten and attacked with green dye. Among the many other risky undertakings, she has scaled meters-high walls to infiltrate the president’s massive compound outside Kiev in an effort to expose his luxurious lifestyle.

This picture, taken on Jan. 29, 2013, shows Tetyana Chornovol and other opposition activists storming Kiev's city hall to prevent illegitimate Kiev Council sessions.Image: STR/AFP/Getty Images

She published photographs of President Viktor Yanukovych’s lavish 370-acre estate, known as Mezhyhirya, that has come to symbolize corruption among Ukraine’s high-ranking government officials. The former government residence was transferred from state to private hands through a maze of foreign shell companies that journalists in Kiev have linked to Yanukovych.

Chornovol was attacked just hours after publishing a blog post on Ukrainska Pravda, showing photos of what Chornovol asserts to be the pricey country home of Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko.

Several similarly brutal incidents have occurred around Ukraine in recent days. All of the victims have been journalists and civil activists either covering or organizing massive anti-government demonstrations, which are now in their second month.

Chornovol had the foresight to turn on a dashboard camera in her car as the men in the Porsche were pursuing her at high speeds on a dark country road outside the capital city of Kiev.

The resulting footage shows Chornovol in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the SUV for more than five minutes before the car finally comes to a stop. According to Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Chornovol’s father was on scene shortly after the attack and handed over the video to Vitaliy Zarema, an opposition member of parliament from Batkivshchyna faction.

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